3 former educators vie for EPISD board seats

The cheating scandal that has shaken the El Paso Independent School District and brought national attention to the problems of meeting federal standards prompted three former educators to run for the school board, promising change, credibility and integrity.

The candidates said trustees gave the now-imprisoned former superintendent too much leeway, didn't understand their duties and have been ineffective.

James Lamonica, who retired as an assistant principal at Andress High School, and Chuck Taylor, a retired Army command sergeant major and former teacher at Americas High School, are running for the District 5 spot in Northeast El Paso held by Trustee Joel Barrios.

No one has filed to run for two school board seats up for election: District 2, which Alfredo Borrego represents in Central El Paso, and District 4, which Russell Wiggs represents in Northeast El Paso. Borrego and Wiggs didn't return phone calls Thursday.

Filing will end March 1.

Despite uncertainty overshadowing the May races because of a state takeover, Lamonica and Taylor said they view the election as a chance to show the Texas Education Agency that the community is ready to supply the district with competent leadership.

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Trustees have compounded problems related to the cheating scheme by failing to ask questions, said Lamonica, who worked for 28 years at several EPISD schools as a teacher, assistant principal and principal.

Lamonica, 55, said trustees didn't ask enough questions when cheating accusations first arose about Bowie High School several years ago.

"I understand how the school district works and what should be happening," Lamonica said. "I don't think he (Barrios) and other board members really understand. They didn't understand the auditor reported directly to them."

Trustees have said they first heard about the findings of a May 2011 internal audit, which showed the transcripts of 77 students had been manipulated, last April, when the El Paso Times reported on the document.

State law and board policy require the internal auditor to report directly to the school board, but in the EPISD, the auditor had been reporting to former Superintendent Lorenzo García, who is serving a 3å-year federal prison sentence for leading the cheating scheme.

Lamonica said the school board should receive updates and reports from the internal auditor at every board meeting, and Taylor said the board violated state law by not having the auditor report to it.

Lamonica said the school board also failed to ask why Weaver and Tidwell LLP, a public accounting firm conducting a forensic audit of the district's cheating scheme, requested an additional $200,000, on top of the original bid amount of $587,000, to finish its investigation.

The school board unanimously approved giving Weaver the 34 percent pay increase to finish the audit on Jan. 22. What the extra money was needed for was in disagreement between the school board and the company.

"The $200,000 could have paid for tutoring at Bowie and the district wouldn't have needed to cheat," Lamonica said.

Lamonica, a native of Chicago, said he retired in December to spend more time with his family and to travel.

While at Andress for the past six years, Lamonica was in charge of special education populations.

Andress was part of the district's now-defunct Priority Schools Division, the epicenter of the cheating scheme, which targeted limited English-speaking students, according to the federal information used to charge García.

Students were put in the wrong grade, others were denied enrollment and some students were pushed out of school to cheat federal and state accountability measures.

Lamonica said he never knew of efforts to cheat at Andress.

Taylor, the other District 5 candidate, said he is running to fix the school board's governance failures.

"It's obvious they have neglected some of their compliance duties," Taylor said. "I'm running on compliance, that if you comply with what the rules and laws are, then you're not going to be hooked up in a quagmire like this. The latitude the school board gave the former superintendent caused them to be in the problems they're in now."

Taylor, 76, said that if elected, he would make certain the district complied with local, state and federal laws and policies, an area where he says the school board failed.

As a trustee, Taylor said, he would act as a check and balance to ensure that the superintendent was not acting unethically.

"I'm certain that if they would have followed regulations they were obligated to comply with, the former superintendent would not have had the free hand to do the things that have now crippled the district," Taylor said.

Taylor came to Fort Bliss in 1956 from his native Atlantic City, N.J. He retired from the Army in 1976, then taught at Americas High School for 12 years.

He said he brings experience managing multimillion- dollar budgets from his time in the 1980s as a director of the Rusk State Hospital, which provides psychiatric treatment in East Texas.

Geske, who is running for the District 1 trustee seat, said he wants to restore credibility to the school district by making sound decisions, and by gathering all the facts before making those decisions.

"My whole platform is based on one simple premise: The trustees' job is to make sure administrators and teachers have everything to do their jobs to the best of their ability," Geske said. "That's what I want to restore. If we don't have trust of the public you can't get bond issues passed, you can't do anything."

Geske, 66, also wants to make the district more transparent with the public and improve employee morale by giving a greater voice to teachers, who he said have encouraged him to run.

He said thousands of hardworking teachers in the district have been unfairly tainted by the cheating scandal.

"The majority of people, including teachers, think it's a lame-duck board," Geske said. "They have no credibility and can't do anything. They've lost the trust of the public -- that's the main issue."

Geske spent 22 years working at EPISD schools before retiring in 2008.

He taught English at Morehead Middle School, where he worked for 14 years, and later taught English and social studies at EPISD's Center for Career and Technology Education.

Geske said he wants to show the Texas Education Agency that the community can elect strong leaders to the school board.

The board is appealing Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams' appointment of a board of managers to temporarily replace the elected trustees for up to two years.

If the state's plan is accepted by the U.S. Department of Justice, whoever is elected in May would eventually exercise power because trustee terms last four years.

The school board is also challenging Williams' appointment of a conservator to run the district until the federal government decides whether to approve the board of managers, which will come after a state hearing officer on March 6 issues a final decision on the school board's appeals.

"If the (federal) government rules that the board of managers will take over, we need to elect really good people in May to show the state that (the board of managers) isn't needed anymore," Geske said. "I hope that's the scenario that plays out. I hope they see we can do the job."

Hayley Kappes may be reached at hkappes@elpasotimes.com; 546-6168. Follow her on Twitter @hayleykappes

Make plans

What: El Paso Independent School District trustee elections.

When: The election will be May 11; candidate filing period will end at 5 p.m. March 1.

Seats: Trustee Districts 1, 3, 4, 5.

Applications: Filing packets can be picked up at the superintendent's office in the district education center, 6531 Boeing. The packet is not available online.